What category does Planning Fallacy belong to?

Planning Fallacy belongs to the "Cognitive Biases" category in personal knowledge management and productivity.

What are the key topics related to Planning Fallacy?

Key topics related to Planning Fallacy include: cognitive-biases, planning, productivity, psychology.

What are alternative names for Planning Fallacy?

Planning Fallacy is also known as: Optimism bias, Underestimation.

Planning Fallacy

The tendency to underestimate time, costs, and risks while overestimating benefits.

Also known as: Optimism bias, Underestimation

Category: Cognitive Biases

Tags: cognitive-biases, planning, productivity, psychology

Explanation

The Planning Fallacy is the tendency to underestimate time, costs, and risks of future actions while overestimating their benefits. Projects almost always take longer and cost more than initially estimated. This bias persists even when we know about past overruns. Counterstrategies include: using reference class forecasting (basing estimates on similar past projects), breaking projects into small tasks, adding buffers, and tracking actual versus estimated times to calibrate future estimates.

Related Concepts

Goal Setting
Periodic Reviews

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